Cajón: Cuban musical instrument

A cajón is a six sided and box-shaped percussion musical instrument that originally came from Peru. The musical instrument is played by slapping the front or back faces of the instrument with the fingers, brushes, sticks or mallets.

source: pt.wikipedia.org

Generally, sheets of 0.5 to 0.75 inches thick wood are used for five sides of the musical box. A thinner sheet of plywood in fixed or nailed on as the sixth side of the box, and it functions as the striking surface of the instrument or the head of the box. A sound hole is cut on the back position opposite the ‘tapa’ or the head.

The tope edges of the musical instrument are left unattached and can be slapped against the musical box. The players of this musical instrument sit astride the box, tilting the box at an angle while hitting the heads between his knees. The present day cajón may possess rubber feet, and has many screws at the top of the box for adjusting percussion tone quality. Some versions of this musical instrument could also have many vertical stretched cords that is pressed against the tapa to get a buzz-like tone or effect. The strings of the guitar, rattles or drum snares may serve this aim. The player of the instrument may play the sides of the instrument with the top of his palms and fingers for additional sounds to be produced of the instrument.

The cajón is one of the most widely used Afro-Peruvian musical instruments since the later part of the 18^th century. Slaves of the west and central African origin in the Americas, especially Peru, are taken as the source of the cajón musical drum, but the musical instrument is common in musical performance all through the Americas.

The musical instrument most likely developed in the coastal Peru in the early part of the 19^th century or before then, where it linked with many Afro-Peruvian genres. The musical instrument reached a peak in popularity by 1850 and by the end of the 19^th century; the players of the cajón were experimenting with the design of the musical instrument by refracting some of the planks in the body of the instrument to change the patterns of sound vibration on the musical instrument.

Given that the musical instrument comes from the slave musicians in the Spanish colonial Americas, there are two complementary origin stories for the cajón. It could be possible that the musical instrument is a direct descendant of a number of box-like musical instruments that are from the west and central Africa, specifically Angola and the Antilles. These musical instruments were adapted by Peruvian slaves from the Spanish shipping crates at their discarding. In port cities such as the Mantazas, Cuba, they used codfish shipping crates.

Another theory opines that slaves simply used boxes as musical instrument to subvert Spanish colonial bans on music in mainly African areas. In this manner, the cajón could be disguised to be a stool or seats, as such preventing identification as musical instruments. So in all sense, the musical instrument is a combination of the following factors; African origins and Spanish suppression of slave music that emanated the production of the cajón.

Today, the musical instrument is performed extensively in Cuban, Coastal Peruvian or musica criolla musical patterns: Tondero, Zamacueca and Peruvian Waltz, modern Flamenco and certain patterns of modern day Rumba.

The present day cajón is used often as an accompaniment instrument to the acoustic guitar and is showing up on worldwide performance in the contemporary music. The musical instrument is becoming rapidly well-known in styles like the blue, pop, funk, world music, fusion, jazz, etc. it is often called ‘cajón box’ or ‘drum kit in a box’.

The cajón has become a crucial part of the Cuban and Peruvian music. In Cuba, the instrument is known as a ‘Cuban box drum’ that was originally used to perform Rumba Yambu and today incorporated into many other patterns. The bass drum is large enough to be used as a seat and is performed with the palm of the hand, the fist or the fingers of the hand. The middle version of this drum can be played with spoon and formally a box from church candles. The solo drum began as a desk drawer but has advanced into a specialized box produced for this objective. A more recent contribution to the musical instrument’s family is a tall, tapered box that is similar to a square ashiko.

Apart from the standard use of the cajón, the musical instrument has been performed in many ways, according to various influences over time. Since the cajón has been spread over the world, not only full-time percussionists, but also other performers have started to play this musical instrument. The cajón has been performed not only with hands, but also with plastic and metal brushes, just like any other drum. Another way of playing the musical instrument is to use an ordinary pedal of a bass drum, as such turning the instrument into an indirect percussion musical instrument. This permits the player of the cajón to beat it just like a pedal-bass-drum, but it also forbids the standard position of the player.